


Beyond the Looking Glass

by jheen



Category: Mirrormask (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-22
Updated: 2005-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jheen/pseuds/jheen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena hasn't felt right since the night her mother collapsed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Looking Glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tenar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenar/gifts).



> At the time this was written, I had only saw the movie once, two months earlier. Some details are a little off; I apologize.

Helena sings under her breath as she cleans up her aunt's spare bedroom. It's some recent song that's being overplayed on the radio and a harder type of rock than she usually likes, but it's catchy and stuck in her head and somehow, she's managed to learn all the words. Plus, she's too happy to care; her mother is being released tomorrow and then she will leave this drab little apartment building and return to the circus where she hopes to finally feel like she belongs.

She sits on the floor as she sings, her drawings scattered around her. Most of them, she doesn't care about. Those she puts in a pile and stuffs into her tablet haphazardly; she'll put them with the rest of her pictures once she gets back to her trailer. Some of the pictures, however, resonate oddly with her and she spends several minutes pouring over those. Drawings of spindly tall beetles and weird cat-creatures with wings are carefully placed in a folder to keep from being torn in the trip.

As she sits and sings, she catches the light glinting off something out of the corner of her eye and twisting; she sees a small black cylinder lying just out of her reach under the bed. Leaning over, she stretches out as far as she can and, with the tips of her fingers, rolls the little plastic tube towards her. She grabs it just before it tumbles into a pile of drawings.

Curious, she picks up the tube, recognizing it as lipstick and wondering where it came from. Her aunt so rarely left the apartment to care much for her appearance and Helena can't see herself ever wanting to wear any sort of make-up outside of a performance. Pulling the top off, she twists the bottom and the lipstick is colored an extremely dark reddish-brown, almost black. It is, she thinks, a rather interesting color and rather bold and she suddenly wonders if it'll look good on her.

When she starts to look around for something she could use as a mirror to test this, she shakes such silly thoughts of her head with a self-depreciating chuckle. Then, she twists the lipstick back down sharply, recapping it. It probably belonged to one of the other troupe members and was left here on accident when they were over last night to celebrate her mother's release.

But even as she's thinking about putting it aside to ask around tomorrow, she's sliding it into the pocket of her robe.

\---------

The first night back at the circus, Helena's mother finds Helena studying her reflection very seriously. Helena is mortified at being caught doing something so childish and typical, but her mother just laughs and says she's so glad that Helena's starting to take an interest in her personal appearance. She then kisses Helena on the head and leaves her with a promise that on the next evening off they have, she will sit down with Helena so they can have a mother-daughter talk.

With a sigh, Helena turns back to the mirror to continue her gazing. She actually isn't looking at herself, but she doesn't know how to explain it. She's been seeing something in mirrors and windows out of the corner of her eyes for several days now and she wants to know what it is. She also wants to know why when she does look at herself, there is always a moment of startlement, as if the reflection she sees isn't the one she expects to see.

She closes her eyes and instead of herself in her jeans and shirt with her messy brown hair and plain face, she sees in the mirror another Helena dressed entirely in black with her hair done up and expertly applied makeup, but with cold, angry eyes. With a shudder, her eyes fly back open and the person staring back at her is just her normal self, with the jeans and wispy hair flying all over the place.

She turns away from the mirror and throws herself on the bed, grabbing her tablet and pen. She's always found peace in drawing and right now, she thinks she could use a little bit of peace.

\----------

When she meets Valentine, Helena feels the automatic resonance between them as almost a physical force. In the time it usually takes Helena to exchange mere pleasantries with anyone else, she's tossing teasing quips and balls to this easy-going stranger that makes her want to remember something she knows she's forgotten.

She invites him to watch the performance from backstage, knowing that she will probably get in trouble for it later. But she doesn't want to lose this moment, not when she finally feels right again for the first time since her mother collapsed. But nothing bad happens and actually, he manages to be very helpful at the right moment and when everyone else has left, Valentine is still there, helping her father take down the trapeze swing and cracking jokes that make her mother laugh.

After all the work is done, she slips away with Valentine to sit on top oF a nearby fence and just talk. She somehow isn't surprised that he's managed to charm his way into a job with their troupe; some of the seasonal employees had found other jobs and hadn't returned after the hiatus, leaving them short-staffed. He also laughing tells her he really was about to become a waiter; his step-uncle had a restaurant up in London and since he'd just graduated with no plans on continuing his education, he'd thought the job would at least keep him fed. She laughs with him, but even when he presses her for an explanation of how she'd know, she doesn't know what to say. How do you explain what you don't really understand?

She does find herself telling him about her mother's recent hospital stay and how she felt responsible for it and a lot of other things she :had previously only talked to her parents about. And Valentine listens to her and even though it feels like she's told him this all before, Helena is grateful he doesn't interrupt her or tell her how silly blaming herself for something out of her control really is. When she's done talking, he just sits there for a few minutes and quietly asks if she's still thinks that and then he hugs her tight when she shakes her head. She doesn't, really, at least not that much, but somehow she knows that if she did, she could count on Valentine to help her out.

It's after midnight when her parents come and chase her to bed and Valentine waves a cheerful good-bye from the road, calling out a promise to be there bright and early in the morning so he could go with them to their next performance. Helena snuggles with her stuffed bear after he leaves, feeling content and sleepily wondering if this is what it means to have a friend.

\----------

One night Helena wakes up from a nightmare, haunted by images of that other Helena, with the empty eyes staring accusingly at her. She had spent most of the previous day studying for school and except for a few moments at dinner, she hadn't seen Valentine at all. She stuffs her feet into her slippers and throws her robe over her pajamas, hoping a small walk in the brisk, spring air will help her forget.

She picks up a rainbow-color ball as she exits the trailer and she absently juggles it as she walks past the tent and ticket booth. She doesn't have a destination in mind, just... away. Someplace where she isn't Helena anymore, at least not for a few minutes, and she doesn't have to pretend everything is fine.

There's a small building on the fairgrounds, a gardening shed from the looks of it, but it has a set of steps going up to it and it's in view of the camp in case anyone wakes up to find her missing. She sits on the top step, letting her mind drift away while she tosses the ball up in the air. _Catch... throw... catch... throw...._ The rhythm lulls her into remembering another moment of doing something like this, and titling her head back, she can almost see the imposing stone castle superimposed on the metal shed.

Then, just as Helena was dreamingly thinking, _*This is where he shows up...*_ , a voice speaks up, practically conjured out of her memory and the ball falls listlessly out of her hands. She's stares wide-eyed at Valentine standing before her, the ball rolling to his feet. But it's not the Valentine who's been working with her family for a month now, but the other one with the mask and he picks up the ball and tosses it back to her, just like he did then.

And Helena suddenly feels trapped; it's too much like what she felt in her nightmare earlier and exactly what she remembers feeling _then_ that she doesn't react to the ball, letting it bounce off her arm. She doesn't want to be that Helena, that passive, uncaring doll.

Then, Valentine, the real one without a mask, is sitting on the steps besides her and even though she's not listening to the words, she still hears the concern in his voice. She shakes her head in response, curling her hands in her lap, not sure how to explain the truth. That she remembers him from another place, where he was willing to betray her for a handful of gems, but he'd still helped her out in the end.

So, instead, she just leans on him, bunching the material of her robe together as Valentine bounces the ball between legs between sidelong glances filled with worry and frustration at her obvious distress. Even as she's shaken at how similar her dream-memory Valentine, she can't help but marvel at their differences. Sure, she seen the occasionally mercenary streak in him and he's just as proud and stubborn as the one she remembers, but for all that she knows that other Valentine would care, this one is not afraid to show it and he's never given her reason to doubt his sincerity.

She lets his words wash over her, not paying any attention to them as he starts to fill the silence with random conversation, talking about the trick he'd learn earlier, about his family, whatever words that seem to pop into his head. It gives her the chance to not think that she had been looking for earlier and she starts to relax and let the odd memories and feelings dissipate.

She's so relax that when her fingers encounter something round and hard in her robe pocket, she doesn't think anything of pulling it out to see what she'd left in there the last time she wore them and for the second time in a night, she stares dumbfounded at what she finds. It's the tube of lipstick, the one she'd found in her aunt's bedroom. Almost in a trance, she pulls off the top and twists it up, recognizing the color as the lipstick from her memory, the one the other Helena is always wearing.

And as she stares at it, the understanding comes not in a sudden flash but in a gentle glide of everything falling into place. With an ease that came from years of circus performances, she quickly applies the lipstick and turns to smile at Valentine, her friend not just once, but twice over, asking him if he likes the lipstick on her.

In the reflection of his eyes as he assures her the color, while a bit bold and not quite what he expected her to wear, but is still quite becoming on her, she sees not the girl she'd been desperately holding onto or the angry young woman stifled into being something she didn't want, but... Helena.

 


End file.
